“Rea,” Syr calls out the name again, stretching out on the bedding and wriggling about to sink into the soft mattress. She reminds me of a cute puppy, rolling about like that.

“Rea is you,” she says, turning toward me with a silly smile rising to her lips. “A nickname I came up with. Christina is too long, and I don’t want to call you Tina like others do, so I came up with something new.”

“Rea?” I ask, it sounds like a foreign name but I don’t know enough to recognise its origin.

“Aurea,” Syr says, smiling as she sits up and grabs my hand. “It’s the ice at the top of the mountains. In summer the snow melts, and you can see the Aurea ice. It burns with freezing cold even on the hottest days of summer, but it always shines with beautiful colours. At sunset, the violet lights that shine through the ice are more beautiful than anything.”

“Rea…” I say the name again, feeling it out in my mouth. She wasn’t thoughtless in coming up with the name, quite the opposite. Her explanation evidences that I’ve been on her mind for some time, and given that we hardly knew one another before today, that can only mean that she’s been focused on me as much as I’ve been focused on her.

But we hardly even know each other. Whatever image she has of me, is, by the very nature of our brief relationship, filled by assumptions and guesses, and yet…

Rea.

Not Christina Greystone.

It’s not even a twist of my name, but someone else entirely.

Aurea is a layer of hard ice that has developed æther veins which harden them against the hateful rays of the sun. Ice that stays cool even if set alight in a fireplace, resisting the seasons to force itself into a world that would deny it.

Rea.

The person that Syr sees in me. Not a monster. Not a noble.

Who is Rea?

What is she like?

Is she a kind person? Is she good?

For just a little while, would it be wrong for me to be this person? The person that Syr sees in me?

Would it be wrong to let go of everything that Christina Greystone is, all of what makes her a monster? All that makes her a noble?

Is it immoral for me to want to be someone else?

Syr’s hands wrap around my own, the warmth spreading through me, melting through the ice that I’ve built up inside. It is not magic that gives her so much strength against the æther enforced frost within me. My instincts drive me to weaken the magic when and where I touch her, allowing her warmth to spread through me.

I’m sure that the frost of my flesh must still hurt, but she doesn’t let go of me. She doesn’t even levy a complaint.

“Syr,” I say her name letting it sit on my lips. She’s a strange girl and I don’t know what to say or do now. Looking about the room, I see that Vael has either disappeared or gone into hiding, leaving us here alone. Alone in the private rooms of a whorehouse.

Enchantments hide away the sound from outside, we are a pair gifted perfect privacy and understanding Vael as I do, I can be sure that there will be no intrusion. Not until the morning when she will wake us with a smirk much too deep and a gleam in her eyes. Perhaps she has even locked the door on us, but I do not check.

The thought that it might just open if I do, gives me pause.

“Rea, so um…” Syr shuffles around on the bed, and though she’s still wearing her padded armour, it’s not entirely unflattering. What should Rea be in this moment? What should she do?

“What is it?” I ask, easing the frost in my body so that I can sit near her more comfortably.

“So, ah, about the blood?” Syr asks, rubbing her hands along mine, feeling out each finger. “How does it work?”

Words form on their own as I describe what it means for a vampire to feed. What separates a hunt from… what this is. I still don’t quite know myself, but it is something that demands respect. It’s something special.

I explain the details to her, but I’m not even listening to myself anymore. Syr’s lips are moist, her golden-amber eyes shimmering as they wander, her breath growing faster and with my enhanced senses I can take it all in. Her blood is warm, and her veins pulse under my fingers.

I want to have her, but she is not prey. She is something else.

“Okay,” Syr nods to me, cutting off my explanation.

She’s thoughtful for a few seconds before she pulls her hands back and tugs at the bottom of her padded top. She throws it up, by accident revealing her belly in the open. She’s tan here too, but not as much as along her arms and legs, she’s thin, mostly muscle and bone, though that saying isn’t as much meant for someone with as much muscle as her.

I’m sure that if I reach out now, she’ll be firm under my touch, but she lacks the definition of some knights I’ve seen. It’s as if the same muscles have been condensed down and sanded into a finer shape. The difference between a sketch, with sharp lines and rough edges, and a complete painting where every brushstroke is made with measured care.

She struggles to free herself from the top half of her armour, her maddened wriggling a finer dance than anything performed on the stages below us. Though when she tosses aside the offending clothing, she turns to me with an expression of total innocence, that almost makes me feel ashamed for staring.

What she wears beneath is not anything that I would call reasonable. Her shoulders and collar aren’t even given an illusion of coverage, and only the bare minimum is hidden away, that being her chest and midriff. Though the top is loose enough to show some of her belly beneath. I would find a way to blush if I tried to wear such a thing even in the privacy of my own room.

“What?” Syr asks, fixing the position of the loose top, and straightening the thin strings that hold it over her tan shoulders. Yet, I can’t sense any discomfort from her. She’s curious and playful, but she’s simply unaware of her own state of undress. Or perhaps she doesn’t truly see me as someone she needs to be concerned about.

“You don’t dress like this outside, do you?” I ask, shuffling closer and running a hand over her shoulder. Sweat has stained her skin from wearing her heavy gear, but it’s not as nasty a thing as I would have once seen it as. While I cannot miss the faint scent of it, blended with soaps, it is not an unattractive thing.

“Sometimes,” she shrugs. I guess that her swords keep away any untoward advances that others might make on her, but I still don’t like that this is a sight shared with the wider world. It’s too precious to be something shared so openly.

“So, ah, do I cut myself?” she asks. “The neck?”

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I shake my head and hold out my hand for her, I have spent myself in training before coming here today, and my veins now burn from the stress that I’ve put them through, but the promise of fresh blood sends a pleasant wanting through my flesh and bones.

The monster in me would treat her kindly, as she willingly offers me her blood. As a noble I would straighten my clothes and march right from the establishment, pretending as though I was never here. What does ‘Rea’ choose to do?

Syr rests her hand in mine again, and I move up from her palm to her wrist where the veins are clear to see. Warmth and energy that flows through the flesh of the living, something that I can no longer feel within myself.

I want to feel that again. I want her warmth and I want to be…

I press my fingers into her wrist but my eyes travel upward to her glistening neck. I can smell her blood though it’s not yet spilled.

What would Rea do?

She would accept Syr’s blood, she would graciously drink, and then offer something in return. What could she offer? What could Syr want?

I want to be what she wants.

Looking down from her neck, I press a nail against her wrist, but I can’t quite force down the pressure to cut through her skin. There is something inside of me refusing me, I cannot hurt her. I do not want to hurt her.

Syr takes my hand, pressing her own sharpened nail into her wrist as she drags it a few inches down the length of her arm, releasing the first ruby-red drop of blood, which soon loses its shape as more chase after it.

The air is thick with the iron tang of her blood, it runs down her wrist and into her hand splitting its path and twining around her fingers. I rush to catch it before even a drop can spill.

I cup her hand in my own and drink what pools before following it upstream. I catch the warm life that escapes her and swallow it greedily, the complex flavours too much for me to comprehend in this one moment. Not as I am in this moment, confused, as much as I try to understand, excited, as much as I should remain composed, and lost, as much as I want to find myself.

Her blood rushes through my stressed body, boiling inside as its power heals the damage done to my veins and bolsters them further. She burns through me, boiling me from the inside, and yet it is blissful beyond all compare. Where the burning of ice is opposite to the burning of a flame, this sensation is an opposite to pain itself.

Her blood is not as overwhelming as Vael’s, which is blinding in its power, but it plays along my tongue touching every nerve and setting alight a fire that would burn through a storm. Syr’s blood is sweeter than a chilled fruit in the heat of a long summer day, sour but not as a lemon that overwhelms your senses, more a gentle touch that makes your toes curl as it plays on your tongue.

More flavours dance through her, as her eyes meet mine and her other hand pushes through my hair. Her boiling blood warms me from the inside, leaving me a person not caring for the appearance of a noble, and unconcerned for the predatory wants of a starved monster. I’m not the broken mess of a child, Christina Greystone.

I’m Rea.

And Rea doesn’t need to carry so many burdens.

A thread of fire pushes through me, a magic that I’ve only felt the once. Syr’s necromancy digs deep into my chest, winding around my heart and searing the frozen flesh with a simple idea and concept

“Drink,” she whispers. Her eyes, swirling liquid gold, meet mind as she smiles with a fondness that I’ve not felt since… No, it is different to how my father looked upon me, it is different from both my mother and stepmother. It is something else, and I can’t look away.

Her orders grip me, and the last of my hesitations die as I press my fangs into the open wound in her arm. I draw out more blood from her and drink it with more greed than I thought to find in myself. Her life burns through my stomach, taking strange inhuman paths through my corrupted organs to flood through my veins and then into my heart, where it spins into something more pure.

My heart beats.

The impossible movement cycles boiling blood through my veins, rushing through every part of me and seizing my body with a convulsion. My fangs sink deeper and my hands clench tighter around Syr’s arms as I writhe under the forces of a heart that should be dead. My convulsions nearly tear away my grip on her, but she has wrapped herself around me and is holding my head down against her arm.

She doesn’t pull away, though I know this must hurt her. I can’t see her face anymore, with how she’s holding me, pressing me to her chest to hold me still, but her breath is heavy and her eyes are drilling into the back of my head.

“Cute,” Syr whispers the word, thinking that I can’t hear. The fire inside of me burns brighter without giving me a moment’s reprieve, but I don’t need one. I want more. I can’t stop.

It’s at this point that I can feel the danger.

Syr only has so much blood to spare.

I must stop, but her command holds my heart in her grip and my own desires are nearly impossible to fight.

I shudder as I pull myself away from her, trying to stop, but her wrist is still pressed up against my lips and her other hand is pressing me down. She’s gripping my hair tight, even though her fingers are losing their strength.

I’m taking too much from her.

I’m going to kill her!

I tear my lips from her skin, fighting against every instinct and even the magical order that has taken my heart in its grip. I refuse. Syr tries to force herself on me again, her bloodied arm held out as a tempting offer, but I push her away, choking on her blood as I try to tell her to stop.

Her words are gentle and soothing, but she’s doing something far too reckless.

A complexion that is usually much darker than a normal elf’s is now unacceptably pale, and she needs treatment, she needs to be healed.

Sucking at my lower lip, which tastes of her blood, I grip her tight by the shoulders to keep from doing any more harm.

“Stupid idiot,” I whisper, my fingers pressing into her warm flesh. I heave, my guts twisting up inside as I reject her orders and hold her at arm’s length. I imagine her falling dead, I see myself killing her, and the ice inside of me cracks.

“It’s okay,” Syr says, pulling me closer and looking down at me from so close that I can see nothing but her face. “I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”

“Too much,” I whisper. “You’ve giving me too much, and you’re pale as a ghost. You need a healer.”

“Ah, oh,” she shakes her head. “It’s fine. I can heal myself.”

It is not easy to replace the blood that’s been lost, but her brave, confident expression eases my worries just a little bit as I loosen my grip on her. There is still blood on her fingers and her arm, but the wound is now gone.

I don’t fight the desires anymore, licking away at the blood that covers her wrist and hands. Her fingers are stained red, but the blood is still warm and fresh, and I can’t let a drop be wasted.

Syr writhes about beside me, but I don’t let her escape, not until the last of it is cleaned. She has bled to the point of being made pale for me, and I will not let her suffering be wasted.

When the last trace of blood is gone, and I look up into her eyes, I no longer feel like I’m the same person I was before this. I no longer feel like a monster, and my dignity as a noble is long since betrayed. I do not know what I am, but Syr does.

She’s the one who gave me ‘Rea’, so I look to her in question, seeking to know who it is that I am.

Syr licks her lips, about to say something but she hesitates, ready to let the thought go, but I think I understand. She’s easy to read.

I pull myself up to her face, and run my hand around her shoulder, cupping the back of her neck to hold her in place as I lean close enough to feel her breath on my lips. I don’t want to make the same mistake again, not what happened with Belle, so I move slowly, making it clear what I’m going to do, and giving her a chance to respond.

She doesn’t back away. Her hand slides in under my arm, pressing against my back as she audibly swallows in anticipation. She pulls me in.

Our lips touch, but it isn’t with the taste of blood. Her warm lips press against mine and she opens herself up to me, and I can’t resist her. When her tongue runs along my lips, an alien sensation, strange and unusual, but not unpleasant, I hesitantly copy her.

She’s animalistic with her desires, all of her momentary timidity crumbling away. Her warmth spreads through me wherever she touches, and the more I feel of it, the more that I want.

Our teeth clash, jarring us out of the moment. A chuckle forms on my lips, as I forget that I no longer need to breathe.

Syr laughs before swallowing, her eyes of molten gold glimmering as she pulls me close again before she can even recover her breath. She comes back even stronger than before, her mouth burning. I let her control the pace as we fall against the mattress, her hands pressing against my body.

She is warm. Her affections are simple, but there’s more to it. Her eyes glow with a desire that does not belong in this house of ill repute. Something warmer than lust, or want, or passion.

As she tenderly runs her hand down my cheek, and her warmth invades me deep inside, the dark frozen core in my chest, which I’d thought perfectly hidden away, shatters. Deep dark shards of ice drift through my soul as that which was trapped inside escapes my pitiful attempts to recapture it.

I’m sitting at a dinner table, hearing the screams again.

My older sister is beside me, her face pale and cold. Dead. My older sister. That’s not how I refer to her. It’s not how I think of her.

Juliet.

My eyes grow warm, my throat is blocked by the emotions raging up through me.

My brothers and sisters.

Johnathon. Luke. Harry. Alexander.

Charlotte. Isabella.

“Rea?” Syr calls for me, her hands on my cheeks, but I can’t answer her. I can’t… I shouldn’t…

My eyes are warm. I can’t say a word, holding her tight. Feeling her warmth as she runs her hand down my back and whispers kind words to me.

Darkness closes in around me, as she embraces me, and I let myself become lost.